Saturday, June 30, 2012

This is just a continuation of the OFCC 2012 Fantasy event thread from a few days ago. I wanted to showcase more of the armies that were present.

In addition to the five OFCC games I played, I also had three games with my Wood Elves where I fought Dwarves, Dark Elves and Daemons of Chaos. I went 2-1 with the Woodies this weekend. I had a blast. Anyway here goes more pictures!
Not all the pictures came out very well with my phone's camera but oh well, next time I'll not bring shitty batteries.

Still have about 40 armies or so to post, dependent upon picture quality. Enjoy!

This years OFCC for Fantasy has come and gone. I had a great time as I would have expected. For those who are unaware of what OFCC is, it stands for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge. They hold two every year, one for Warhammer Fantasy and one for Warhammer 40,000. While this does qualify as a huge event due to the fact that there are well over 80 people playing, it is not a tournament. The best way to describe OFCC is a tournament for hobbyists. The event took place on June 23 & 24 at the Red Lion Hotel at the Quay in Vancouver, WA. They had a nice convention center area that could house a room full of gamers for a weekend.

The event is designed for every person who is entered to get five games over the weekend. The Ordo Fanaticus spans from Oregon to Idaho all the way up to Vancouver, BC and OFCC is a way for all the gaming clubs to get together and have fun once a year. My gaming club, Team Tourettes (I know clever name), spends the entire year after OFCC collecting and painting (and scheming) the next army we are going to play. Last year I played my illustrious Wood Elves and went 4-1, this year I played my nefarious Beastmen and again went 4-1. While I seriously doubt I'll go 4-1 with Bretonnians next year, I fully intend on having fun regardless!

I will briefly recap what my opponents took and my five games (during OFCC) and the three I played outside the event. If I attempt to battle report all 8 games this will be the longest blog post of all time so I will just summarize and if anything super special happened I'll mention it. I had a total of 8 games over the weekend plus two more on Wednesday night (6/28) for a total of 10 games in a week. I think it's safe to say I am all Warhammered out!

This match up had five coins spread evenly across the center of the board and the objective was to collect all five coins. My opponent was Matt Peterson who brought Warriors of Chaos. I enjoyed Matt's army, he had a fully themed Slaanesh army complete with Chaos Lord on a boob worm. He brought a variety of models, some chariots, spawns, knights, marauders etc.. The game was going remarkably well for both of us, we had been dealing a fair bit of damage to each other until the top of the 5th turn where I failed not one but four charges and left myself stranded and out of position in the center of the board.

Matt, being the excellent general that he is, rolled me up like a carpet from the flank with his Chaos Knight bus and that was game. I ended up with a loss for the first game!

Matt also won my Favored Opponent pin for the event. It helps to start drinking early with your opponent after a game!

This match up provided Loremaster to one wizard in your army and a casting bonus of +1 per rank up to +3. So my Great Bray Shaman was casting spells at +7. I played against Chris Zakel who was fielding a pretty awesome Beastmen list with Centigors, two minotaur units and twin Ghorgons. This game did not start off well because I got first turn and chose to say "to hell with it" and threw a large Purple Sun that was not dispelled and killed a Ghorgon, a unit of Gors and the unit behind it. This event caused another unit to turn and flee and go off the board. I asked if we would like to restart and play without the master mage rules and pretend that 1st round hadn't happened and Chris's response was "naw that's ok, that's how the dice go sometimes".

So the game ended with Chris killing a full 1/3rd of my army until he was finally wiped out. I had a great time and so the Beastmen scored their first win of the day.

Game 3 - King of the HillOpponent: Jordan Ross of CHOP!Army: Warriors of ChaosGame Results: Win

This match up had a rule that at the end of the game there were bonus points for controlling the hill in the center. I fought yet another Warrior of Chaos army, this time he had a Sorcerer using Lore of Heavens. I was surprised by this choice but it served him very well. The game went very smoothly, we were selecting our charges wisely but in one turn Jordan lost 2 units and I was able to wipe out a good portion of his army and scored a win.

So the great thing about team CHOP! was that every time one of their club did something well, they would stand up and shout CHOP! and the rest of the team would shout it right after. I had a great game and look forward to seeing more shirtless drunken Canadian wrestling in the aisles next year.

This match up had a road going down the center of the table edges connecting deployment zones. The goal was to have as many units in your opponents deployment zone and on the road as possible. My hat's off to Greg for doing what I do for all my lists which is name every unit and keep that theme going. His entire list does not have a single entry that isn't named. Bravo Greg! This game Greg got screwed by panic tests, there is no other way to say it. First turn his Yhetees charge the Ghorgon, lose and flee. The Yhetees then flee through the leadbelchers who then flee through Ironguts, Ogre Bulls and the Maneaters. So at the top of turn 2 I have several units just disappear due to charges and etc... I did not like that his army was plagued by bad leadership and offered to restart our game but I have to say that Da' Mommas Boyz are excellent sports, Greg like his teammate Chris declined and said "It's just how it goes sometimes!" He still proceeded to kick ass with his 3 giants. This list was fantastic, I really enjoyed playing it.

This match up was a modified Blood and Glory where Monsters also granted you 1 Fortitude. This game was a grind fest, every unit was severely reduced by the end of the game. Minotaurs had the Doombull, my Bestigors had 11 left and the Gor horde was down to 18. I tried to cast Purple Sun like 4 times and never got it off and the one time I did Tycho dispel scrolled it. I shook my fists at the heavens! In the end I managed to kill enough banners in his army to illicit a win at the bottom of Turn 5. I got to see the full power of a fully functional Mortis Engine. I also now regret not having a way to kill it sans spells from far away!
In the end I had a great time and Tycho was a great opponent.

I ended up playing three games with the Wood Elves this weekend as well, all three games I was pretty bombed but pulled out a 2-1 record. Lost to Moses Jones's of the Put a Skull on it club Dwarves on Friday night - while Moses contends that that game shouldn't count I will beg to differ. I was sober enough to carry the army without mishap henceforth sober enough to play! I scored a victory against Andrew Clafin's Dark Elves of the Mongering Mongrels, that was a blast! Finally, I can't remember my last opponent's name but he was a daemons of chaos player and I defeated them at the bottom of 4.

This was such a wonderful weekend and I look forward to doing it again next year!
Here are some images of the event and my team!:First off here is Team Tourettes!:

I'm going to link the Ordo Fanaticus gallery here as well as posting some of the pictures I took that turned out well.Ordo Gallery

This is part 1 of what will be 2-3 parts of the OFCC 2012 Fantasy pictures. I'll do one or two more updates showing some of the "better" pictures as well as more galleries once they are put up by my team mates or other Ordo members.

Friday, June 22, 2012

It's been a year in the making... the anticipation for yet another two day NERD SAFARI! This year I will not be taking the Wood elves but rather my Beastmen! It looks to be a pretty busy event this year with twice as many people almost as the last. Team Tourettes and I will be taking the field dice in hand, ready to reach that goal of .15% Blood Alcohol Level and 50% success rate! My cohosts of our podcast the Deployment Zone , Bryan and Josh will also be making their debuts on the Points Pinata team! We will hopefully be able to hook up with Andrew Sherman, Jake Hunter and Mark Dieter of the Ohiohammer podcast Saturday night to link the Blood in the Sun II event and OFCC 2012 into a single podcast. Here's to a weekend of gaming!

I'll be playing 5 games against 5 other Ordo Fanaticus members and I tell ya it'll be more fun than a bag of hammers!

Here is the list I'm using for this year's event:2800 Pts - Beastmen Roster - The Raucous Host, Warherd of the Drakwald

So this is the continuation of the previous WIP post for the Realm of Battle Board I was working on. I will pick up right where the last post left off in order to have continuity!

So having dry brushed and completed the rocky terrain and broken earth, I took some Dheneb stone and Ogryn Flesh wash and painted/washed the skulls that were recessed into the board. I then took the Behr - Aged Parchment (Ivory) sample and did a 50/50 mix of the Espresso Brown and the Aged Parchment. I took the mixed paint and dry brushed the entire board.

Step 8

As you can see, the ivory/espresso mix worked out well to lighten the board without washing out the detail. i.e. I got lucky that it didn't look bad!

Step 9 - Preparation
Before you begin to mix your flock you will want to take a moment and cut out about 3 or 4 sections of painter's paper to lay on your work surface. These sections should be about 5'x5' if you can swing it. You will then place your RoBB tiles upon them one at a time and use the paper as your work surface for the next few steps.

Step 10 - Flock

So the most involved part of this entire process was picking out and identifying the type and color of flock I wanted to use on my Realm of Battle Board. I literally had 23 different combinations and mixtures assembled before I put together what I wanted. I chose to use a 50% blend of Woodland Scenics Dark Green Static Grass Flock and 50% of Gale Force 9's Green Static Grass. I blended 12 canisters of the Gale Force 9 and an equal amount of Woodland Scenics and it almost filled a tupperware bin that you will see in future pictures.

It was not enough, next time I need to probably buy at least 20 canisters of the GF9 flock and mix that with equal parts Woodland Scenics. I had just enough to almost cover 8 boards, I had to sacrifice my last tub of Games Workshop Glade Grass to cover one of the boards.

Anyway here is what I used:

Step 11 - Actual Flocking
I mixed up a container of 2 Elmer's Glue and equal parts water. The consistency of pancake batter is an excellent goal to shoot for for this. You don't want it too thin nor do you wish it too thick.

If you will notice, I used a 2" brush to spread. You don't want anything smaller cause you really want to do this fairly quick.

I then painted the glue on starting with a corner and spreading my way out a section at a time. As soon as I had painted a section, I would drop the flock on it and leave about an inch of the glue grass-free. I would then continue painting out using the inch I had left as the starting point. There is an excellent example of this on the Games Workshop site Here.

Once I had covered a board it looked like this:

Once I had covered the board like thus, I pressed down with my palm and patted down the flock. Once that was completed I waited about 5 minutes and turned the board on it's side and banged all the loose grass off of it and onto the pre-cut sections of painters paper under it.

I then moved the tiles to locations to dry:

After that was completed, I took the loose paper and folded it to then funnel the reclaimed static grass mixture to pour back into my tupperware container to use on the next tile.

Example:

It was so much easier to gather the loose grass having taken the time to secure a good method to keep it in one place. Not to mention - not having static grass go everywhere when pouring into something is kinda awesome.

Step 12 - Drying overnight
Once the boards are flocked, I set them about half an inch apart on the table and left them to dry overnight.
Once that was finished the next day (or 3 days later in reality) I turned the boards over on their side and was able to reclaim more loose grass.

Step 13 - Sealing your Board.

I had purchased 4 cans of Sealer from the Armory when I bought my primer. Having checked online, I was pleased to discover that while Armory's primers sucked a massive donkey dick, their sealer did not. It was well rated and very, very few issues had been reported with it. So, having my confidence in their product renewed, I set about sealing the boards. I went through 2.5 cans of sealer.
Rules for Sealing I discovered:
1. Open the garage door
2. Wear a mask or something over your mouth
3. Have a fan blowing out of the garage.
4. Glasses or goggles don't hurt to use either
5. Spray light coat then heavy coat then light again.
6. 1st light coat I let dry for 15 minutes
7. 1st heavy coat I let dry for 1 hour.
8. 2nd light coat I let dry for 15 minutes.
9. Done!

Now that this is complete and I have had time to reflect on how I did this project. There are several things I would have done differently.
1. I would have used a better primer. - Army Painter, Citadel/Games Workshop, etc..
2. I would have purchased more Gale Force 9 Green Static Grass flock. I bought 10 which gave me 12 canisters, I would have been more comfortable with 20 and would have definitely had left overs for future projects and terrain. (I ordered 10 more never fear!)
3. I would have intermingled a few different shades of grass into the mix. I love the color I chose but a bit more variety would have been nice.
4. I might have used a lighter basecoast brown for the board. Next board I may use only the Citadel realm of battle board Scenery kit on it and see how that turns out.

This entire project took just over 12 hours combined to prime/paint/flock/seal. Totally doable in a weekend if you have the time or over a couple evenings while your wife watches The Real Housewives of New York marathons with her cousin on the couch.

sigh...

Anyway, I look forward to playing with this and you all may expect some terrain posts in the near future as I get that and my garage playing area together!